In a communication device of each site in a communication network layout, a control board used to be responsible for service processing is generally disposed, and a communication device with a large user capacity is generally configured with two control boards: an active one and a standby one. Due to reasons such as one for satisfying demands for continuously developed service processing capabilities, new control boards are continuously developed, such as a control board with a higher processing capability, and an old control board needs to be replaced with a new control board, namely, control board upgrading is performed, so as to improve a processing capability of the communication device, and satisfy service demands.
A key for replacement between a new control board and an old control board is to migrate configuration data on an old control board of an existing network to a new control board, and the prior art adopts the following manner: Before upgrading, a shelf completely the same as that of a communication device of an existing site is additionally prepared in a lab (if the shelves do not match with each other, data conversion may fail), and the new control board is inserted into the shelf and started; first, an application is made to an operations support system (Operations support system, OSS for short) of an operator to stop service provisioning, so as to avoid data loss caused by configuration data alteration once more in a control board replacement procedure. Then, remote login is made to the site of the existing network, configuration data corresponding to the old control board to be replaced is exported, the data is imported into the new control board and data conversion is performed. The data conversion is to convert a data format of the data of the old control board into that matching with a type of the new control board, and specifically, a manner of activating a configuration file or internally disposing a database upgrading tool may be adopted. After the data conversion is completed, the new control board is unplugged from the shelf, a site and a communication device which correspond to the new control board are recorded, an operator takes the new control board to the site of the existing network to find the corresponding communication device, and unplugs the old control board in the device, and then inserts the new control board, and the replacement procedure is completed after the new control board is started.
The manner of replacing an old control board with a new control board has the following problems.
First, configuration data import of the new control board can only be completed in the lab in advance, and the shelf has to be additionally prepared; after the data is imported, the operator takes the new control board to the site to perform replacement, and configuration data export, import and conversion work are all executed through manual control, so control board replacement efficiency is low, and a manpower cost is high.
In addition, from the time of beginning to export the configuration data of the old control board to the time of completing the control board replacement, where the time for the operator to hurry to the site of the existing network is included, it is not allowed to provision a new service in the entire procedure, so as to prevent inconsistency between the configuration data of the new control board and that of the old control board; furthermore, sites of the existing network are generally not distributed in a concentrated manner, so that it is caused that no service can be provisioned in several hours or even in a longer time, thereby impacting service operating of the existing network greatly.
Furthermore, after the configuration data is imported into the new control board in the lab, each new control board has to be tagged with a specific site and a specific communication device which correspond to the each new control board, and the operator finds the corresponding device according to the tag to replace the old control board with the new control board; if control boards of a plurality of communication devices are replaced simultaneously, manual seeking according to a tag easily errs, and a situation of an error of non-corresponding insertion of a control board may occur.